Star Wars Battlefront hit by nerf blaster

I'm beginning to understand why Han shot Greedo over a cantina table—any further away and the blast wouldn't have warmed his ears. The latest Star Wars Battlefront patch is a sweeping series of nerfs, not least to Solo's firepower. His damage now ranges between 70 (down from 75) to 30 (from 35) over a distance of between 10 metres (previously 20) and 20 metres (previously 40).

Things are worse for happy-go-lucky bounty hunter Boba Fett. His missile no longer locks on, weapon damage has been remodelled from 30 to 20 (was 25) between 30 and 60 (was 80) meters, and the radius of wristlauncher explosions is down from 4m to a tiddly little 2.5m. Both heroes' ships have had 30% knocked off their health in Fighter Squadron mode.

Weapons and Star Cards have also been scaled down, with the exception of the Cycler Rifle (known variously as the bane of my life and "Oh, ffs!"), which now has reduced bullet drop and increased damage at close range—it's a guaranteed one-shot kill under 10m. Mercifully, the notorious DL-44 pistol has had its fire rate pushed all the way back to 180 from 250.

The full list of nerfs is extensive, but there's some happier news for detractors of, well, every spawn system DICE comes up with. More spawn points have been added in Supremacy, Walker Assault and Turning Point modes, and the way spawning adapts to small and large games has been revamped. If that's not new and shiny enough for you, Andy has the details on Battlefront's next three chunks of DLC.